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by.a.teammate posted:Just wondering if anyone is watching that new samurai documentary on Netflix? It's seems high production values but really pulpy history. I have no evidence to back this up though just a hunch and I wondered if someone with actual knowledge knew more? Not an expert, but I had to stop watching as soon as it hit the katana being the best sword ever and the samurai being the best warriors ever, like no-one else anywhere ever was making swords or waging constant war. Which was annoying, cos I was interested in Oda Nobunaga.
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Mar 5, 2021 09:39
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Wow that sounds uh, not great. I never understood why popular history has to be filled with so much bullshit, cool poo poo is happening all the time when you read history. You don't need to make up bullshit about 1000x folded katana's and invincible samurai warriors.
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Mar 5, 2021 09:44
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Elissimpark posted:Not an expert, but I had to stop watching as soon as it hit the katana being the best sword ever and the samurai being the best warriors ever, like no-one else anywhere ever was making swords or waging constant war. Which was annoying, cos I was interested in Oda Nobunaga. See this was the quote that even with my tiny history intelligence I knew was proper body pillow territory. It’s a pity cos the proper story is probably just as baller without tons of hyperbole
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Mar 5, 2021 09:54
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:There was a woman who wrote a comic about a Roman bath architect time travelling several dozen times through arcane bath portals into and from modern Japanese baths and eventually getting stuck in Japanese times and starting a relationship with a Japanese woman romaboo Thermae Romae, and it was super popular in Japan to the point of getting a live action movie
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Mar 5, 2021 10:46
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lol "samurai are the ultimate warriors now let's explain how a guy imported rifles and conquered the whole country, starting a dynasty that proceeded for 250 years"
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Mar 5, 2021 11:59
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That guy just brought a gun to a knife fight.
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Mar 5, 2021 12:33
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FAUXTON posted:lol "samurai are the ultimate warriors now let's explain how a guy imported rifles and conquered the whole country, starting a dynasty that proceeded for 250 years"
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Mar 5, 2021 12:43
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Gaius Marius posted:Wow that sounds uh, not great. I never understood why popular history has to be filled with so much bullshit, cool poo poo is happening all the time when you read history. You don't need to make up bullshit about 1000x folded katana's and invincible samurai warriors. From what I've heard from people that were involved with the shows, the producers come with an idea what they want to see in the show, and don't give a poo poo about what the experts that they consult actually tell them. If they consult them at all in the process of writing. Then you have situations where the people they interview tell them completely different things based on actual research that conflict with what they want to hear, so they edit it out. Although things got better. People like Toby Capwell, who combine being a researcher with jousting and armored combat as a hobby add loads of value. Archery is still increddibly badly researched, my partner in crime had ONE publication in an obscure journal as a co-author, on some stuff that they looked at in Dresden, and the BBC contacted him for consulting on some show. There was literally nothing else that they found. Then you have a series of prime publications on finds of nicely preserved cave burial in mongolia, and the supposed experts in experimental archeology who specialize on the archery side can't tell birchbark apart from cherry bark, and cow horn from ram. The measurements in the datasheets of the material thickness of each point on the bow is off by up to 2mm (lol) when added up, and the placement of these points makes no loving sense at all. But that poo poo is lauded into high heaven, because there's nobody else who either has access or a shred of knowhow. Then the dude makes a "reconstruction" of that bow, and it's half the size of the original and looks like it's been made by a complete amateur. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 12:53 on Mar 5, 2021 |
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Mar 5, 2021 12:51
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Origin posted:I think I found them. The text just says "Es stultior asino, Gaium Marium" over and over again. So that's where CAIVS ASINVS EST comes from.
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Mar 5, 2021 12:56
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I remember reading in this thread that the ancient Assyrians were massive assholes, but looking back through a bazillion pages for Assyrian stuff seems to be a job for actual archaeologists. Could I have the CliffNotes on their history, or at least a few YouTube videos I can listen to while I play Civ?
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Mar 5, 2021 12:59
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Nessus posted:That dude was a samurai, wasn't he? Eh in a strict sense not really? Like daimyo and samurai were different classes/castes but since both existed on sorta the same spectrum of nobility a daimyo may have been samurai earlier in life but I'm pretty sure at the time Oda/Tokugawa/Toyotomi were unifying Japan they were daimyo rather than samurai.
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Mar 5, 2021 13:02
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FAUXTON posted:Eh in a strict sense not really? Like daimyo and samurai were different classes/castes but since both existed on sorta the same spectrum of nobility a daimyo may have been samurai earlier in life but I'm pretty sure at the time Oda/Tokugawa/Toyotomi were unifying Japan they were daimyo rather than samurai.
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Mar 5, 2021 13:11
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The samurai caste was very fluid during the sengoku: when you live in the crucible of constant war, a lord isn't going to be picky about the heritages of your retainers so long as they're really good at fighting and leading men. Hideyoshi started out as a servant. There's a letter from a lord to his son admonishing him to not waste money on one fine sword, when you could equip hundreds of men with spears for the same expenditure. All the anachronisms of samurai identity: the obsession with honor, loyalty, katanas, seppuku, sumptuary laws, all that arose after the Tokugawa shogunate attained total power over Japan, and no wars were to be had. Status was now set in stone, and things other than being really good at fighting and leading men were the new markers of rank.
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Mar 5, 2021 13:18
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A samurai is a knight A daimyo is a lord A katana is a longsword
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Mar 5, 2021 13:22
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FreudianSlippers posted:A samurai is a knight
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Mar 5, 2021 13:27
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Nessus posted:It's a curved single-edged sword of non-European design. It is clearly a scimitar. nah it's more a jambiya with delusions of grandeur
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Mar 5, 2021 13:39
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Nothing in the rulebook says a samurai can't import a few thousand muskets
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Mar 5, 2021 14:36
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Nessus posted:It's a curved single-edged sword of non-European design. It is clearly a scimitar. It's a Masterwork Bastard Sword!
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Mar 5, 2021 14:47
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Nothing in the rulebook says a samurai can't import a few thousand muskets oh that's the old rulebook
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Mar 5, 2021 14:58
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A shitload of the most romantic and impressive castles / other "medieval" buildings you're gonna see in Germany are replicas built by 19th c nostalgic medievaboos and I assume that the samurai mythos is about of the same vintage. Some train mogul / coal industrialist deciding that castles are awesome.
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Mar 5, 2021 15:36
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I mean, basically all of "bushido" is post-meiji isn't it? And mostly from the fascist period where the people whose ancestors were actual samurai conned all the poor schmucks to kill and die for The Nation
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Mar 5, 2021 15:48
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:I mean, basically all of "bushido" is post-meiji isn't it? And mostly from the fascist period where the people whose ancestors were actual samurai conned all the poor schmucks to kill and die for the cause. Yeah. But it started even before the 19th century because the samurai as armed retainers of local aristocrats stopped being a thing when the Tokugawa shogunate unified Japan again after 1615. Less opportunities for fighting when the country wasn't in a state of constant civil war and the new regime obviously did not want aristocrats loving around with private armies anymore.
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Mar 5, 2021 15:53
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Gaius Marius posted:Wow that sounds uh, not great. I never understood why popular history has to be filled with so much bullshit, cool poo poo is happening all the time when you read history. You don't need to make up bullshit about 1000x folded katana's and invincible samurai warriors. It's not just Samurai stuff, or even just pop history: people are obsessed with things that are the "-est of all time." Once you start looking for it you'll realize it's everywhere. I don't know if that superlative is necessary for people to pay attention. E.g. As you can tell from my av I'm an MMA dude and it's just loving exhausting how the only conversation 99% of fans want to have is "who is the greatest fighter of all time" and as soon as a champion defends a belt they start arguing about whether he's the greatest featherweight or what.
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Mar 5, 2021 16:00
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aphid_licker posted:A shitload of the most romantic and impressive castles / other "medieval" buildings you're gonna see in Germany are replicas built by 19th c nostalgic medievaboos and I assume that the samurai mythos is about of the same vintage. Some train mogul / coal industrialist deciding that castles are awesome. castles are cool but only assholes care enough to have one built, even back when you would actually need to withstand a prolonged military siege - if you're under siege in your castle you're just dragging out the inevitable and making it as costly as possible for the enemies outside which is frankly just rude as hell outside of a siege it's just there to look imposing/impressive, which feeds back into the initial point about only assholes wanting them built. FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Mar 5, 2021 |
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Mar 5, 2021 16:04
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Elissimpark posted:Not an expert, but I had to stop watching as soon as it hit the katana being the best sword ever and the samurai being the best warriors ever, like no-one else anywhere ever was making swords or waging constant war. Which was annoying, cos I was interested in Oda Nobunaga. I disregard this sort of enthusiasm and assume the person who wrote the script is just really into samurai. The history itself seems to hold up if you're able to dismiss these kind of claims and gloss over them.
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Mar 5, 2021 16:08
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FAUXTON posted:castles are cool but only assholes care enough to have one built, even back when you would actually need to withstand a prolonged military siege - if you're under siege in your castle you're just dragging out the inevitable and making it as costly as possible for the enemies outside which is frankly just rude as hell Yeah the new-build stuff is obviously ornamental, with lots of actual big windows etc. It's fun to look at. Here they replaced the actual fortification gates with these replicas when they tore down the city walls that had become obsolete.
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Mar 5, 2021 16:34
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Edinburgh castle is fun because it was besieged a lot and partially or totally destroyed several times over so you've got 16th century buildings with 19th century interiors surrounded by 17th-18th century walls and a cozy little 12th century chapel. Of course since it's basically in the optimal place for a castle (massive easily defendable hill) there's probably been some sort of fortification on the site since at least the Bronze Age.
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Mar 5, 2021 17:38
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Not a castle but the Strasbourg cathedral area really amuses me. A bunch of 19th century recreations of medieval and early modern buildings, and don't get me wrong it's beautiful if you ignore the horrible mordor cathedral, but in addition to the expected tourist traps and restaurants and poo poo there's a McDonald's, a Subway, a loving Games Workshop selling space marines, and more, all tucked into these quaint medievalish façades like a minute's walk from the towering cathedral.
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Mar 5, 2021 17:49
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:I mean, basically all of "bushido" is post-meiji isn't it? And mostly from the fascist period where the people whose ancestors were actual samurai conned all the poor schmucks to kill and die for The Nation Yup. It's harder than you'd think to find any "traditional" Japanese culture that actually pre-dates Meiji. At least on a national level; there are lots of little village festivals and stuff that are centuries old. The same way a lot of western countries invented a romantic traditional past in the 19th century, Japan adopted that as part of their modernization too. Food culture wise a surprising amount is post WW2.
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Mar 5, 2021 18:31
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Anyone knows why historical show/documentary about any empire of some sort never starts by the beginning?
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Mar 5, 2021 19:57
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Dalael posted:Anyone knows why historical show/documentary about any empire of some sort never starts by the beginning? It's boring. The usual way is to present a dramatic cliffhanger moment, then go back to how it started and why it matters, then what happened as a result. Storytelling requires a plot.
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Mar 5, 2021 20:06
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Finding a narrative throughline for the entire Sengoku Period seems hard.
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Mar 5, 2021 20:18
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Elyv posted:Finding a narrative throughline for the entire Sengoku Period seems hard. not if you're just following the imperial family lol
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Mar 5, 2021 20:19
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My understanding was that in 14th century Europe defensive technology legitimately outstripped offensive technology and you could be safe in the knowledge that if you turtled up in your castle, your neighbors would never be able to pull you out. And your food stores would probably last longer than the supply lines of the besieging army. A lot of sieges ended on a negotiated truce though because even if you expect to win sieges are miserable, so both sides have negotiation as more appealing than playing the siege out. I got all this from a book specifically about France though so maybe 14th century France was uniquely poo poo at siezing walled towns and castles
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Mar 5, 2021 20:21
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cheetah7071 posted:My understanding was that in 14th century Europe defensive technology legitimately outstripped offensive technology and you could be safe in the knowledge that if you turtled up in your castle, your neighbors would never be able to pull you out. And your food stores would probably last longer than the supply lines of the besieging army. A lot of sieges ended on a negotiated truce though because even if you expect to win sieges are miserable, so both sides have negotiation as more appealing than playing the siege out. That's about it as I recall. Most armies of the day supplied themselves by foraging. It works as long as they're moving. The army outside the walls tended to have big problems with supply, disease, boredom, and weather. Keeping it going was logistically difficult, so often there would be some sort of arrangement (often payment of a ransom) and they'd move on. Also on the subject of castles, Guédelon Castle is pretty neat. They're building it using the same techniques, tools, and materials as were used in the 13th century to get a better idea of how it was done. Deteriorata fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Mar 5, 2021 |
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Mar 5, 2021 20:29
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Nessus posted:It's a curved single-edged sword of non-European design. It is clearly a scimitar. Isn't it literally a cavalry saber that got elongated over time into a two-handed weapon? But anyhow stuff like "low-quality iron ore" and "used as a backup weapon" doesn't matter. What matters is that Katanas look totally awesome.
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Mar 5, 2021 21:26
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Similarly viking swords were largely made from bog iron and weren't very good by continental standards. There's a part in Laxdæla where a character needs to constantly straighten his sword by stomping on it because it keeps getting bent in the heat of battle. Since the sagas are mor historical fiction than fact I don't know how indicative that Is of actual sword quality at the time but it's a fun element nonetheless.
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Mar 5, 2021 22:08
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Yeah my understanding is that the art of the Japanese sword was mostly amazing for making serviceable swords out of iron ore that would have probably been used as paving stones in other countries, not that the swords were, in fact, monomolecular. Also Japan got culturally huge; if it had been the Phillipines we'd no doubt have seen escrima masters doing wild poo poo including stopping both bullets AND swords - with just sticks!!
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Mar 5, 2021 22:13
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Nessus posted:Yeah my understanding is that the art of the Japanese sword was mostly amazing for making serviceable swords out of iron ore that would have probably been used as paving stones in other countries, not that the swords were, in fact, monomolecular. Also Japan got culturally huge; if it had been the Phillipines we'd no doubt have seen escrima masters doing wild poo poo including stopping both bullets AND swords - with just sticks!! Playing the drums but actually Im just reflecting back a machine gun salvo.
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Mar 5, 2021 22:17
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:I mean, basically all of "bushido" is post-meiji isn't it? And mostly from the fascist period where the people whose ancestors were actual samurai conned all the poor schmucks to kill and die for The Nation Bushido was post-Tokugawa, it just got rrevived by the post-Meiji Imperial Japanese Army to motivate its conscripts. Bushido was originally an elite philosophy, not any farmer pulled out of his hut and given a gun and uniform was supposed to embody it. But you can't discount its effectiveness, those soldiers allowed Imperial Japan to punch far above its weight.
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Mar 5, 2021 22:23
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